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'Hannah Montana' tops Billboard 200

Silversun Pickups reach career-high sales with latest disc

In its fourth week on the Billboard 200, the "Hannah Montana: The Movie" soundtrack (Walt Disney) reaches No. 1 for the first time, vaulting to the top of the chart with sales of 133,000, according to Nielsen SoundScan. That's a decline of 32% compared to last week's haul of 196,000 -- but that sum was powered by the film's April 10 opening in theaters combined with sales driven by the Easter holiday shopping. Overall album sales are down 19% this week as the market adjusts after the busy Easter week.

The "Hannah Montana" film bowed atop the U.S. and Canada box office over the April 10-12 weekend with $32.3 million and slipped to No. 4 over the most recent weekend with $12.7 million.

This past week the "Hannah" album was able to fend off the second chart week of Rascal Flatts' "Unstoppable" (No. 3 with 107,000; down 69%) and the debut of Day26's Bad Boy set "Forever In a Day" (No. 2 with 113,000). The former Lyric Street album arrived at No. 1 last week with 351,000.

"Hannah Montana: the Movie" is the first soundtrack to top the Billboard 200 chart this year. Last year, three did the trick: "Juno," "Mamma Mia!" and "Twilight." "Hannah Montana: the Movie" is also the third soundtrack from the "Hannah" franchise to reach the top of the chart, after the first and second volumes of the TV show's soundtracks hit No. 1 in 2006 and 2007, respectively.

Day26's album is the made-on-MTV group's second effort, following its self-titled No. 1-debuting set from just over a year ago. That album started with 190,000 on its way to a to-date sum of 387,000 in the U.S.

The only other debut in the top 50 of the Billboard 200 this week comes from Silversun Pickups, which sees its Dangerbird album "Swoon" arrive at No. 7 with a career-high sales week of 43,000. The band's first release, 2006's "Carnavas," peaked at No. 80 on the Billboard 200 and its best sales week came in early March of 2007 when it sold nearly 10,000. The new album's first single, "Panic Switch," climbs to No. 7 on the Modern Rock chart this week.

Overall album sales in this past chart week (ending April 19) totaled 6.36 million units, down 18.8% compared to the sum last week (7.83 million) and down 15.2% compared to the same sales week of 2008 (7.5 million). Year to date album sales stand at 111.7 million, down 12.3% compared to the same total at this point last year (127.3 million).